Finding Faith
by Vi Co
Summary: Insight into a staffer's mind during a life-changing event. Please read and review. (I'd like to know if anyone is even reading this!)
1. Leo

Finding Faith  
  
The jungle closed in around me. That's the first thing that I remember thinking. The jungle closed in on me, caging me, holding me to the earth when I should have been soaring high above in the clouds.  
  
My cockpit had filled with acrid smoke. My engines had cut out. I had been left without power, without control, without vision. I had been left with no choice but to jettison the plane that had kept me above the cage of the jungle.  
  
And then white silk billowing above me, slowing my descent into the jungle. Changing the suicidal plummet into a semblance of a controlled descent, like we had practiced. But nothing was the way we had practiced it. You can't practice for when your plane deserts you and you are alone in the jungle.  
  
Oh, I suppose that I really wasn't alone. Our guys were out there, somewhere. And the other guys were out there, somewhere else. But you can't see them, can't hear them. So you're alone with only yourself to rely on, with only your wits and the scant provisions that come in the tiny kits we carried in the pocket of our flight suit.  
  
It should never come to that, the time when your life rests on a few bars of tropical issue chocolate, a canteen of water, and some amphetamine tablets. The tiny tins couldn't hold much more and you were never prepared for being shot down because it always happened to the other guy. That was the sort of thing that never happened to you.  
  
God, we were so young. We never understood our own mortality. We understood the mortality of the other guy, the one beside us in the briefings, because we had all seem them not come back. But we always came back. We never stopped to consider that to the guy beside us, we were the other guy.  
  
I know that I never understood it until the jungle closed in on me. I existed in that peaceful bubble of naivety until the jungle reached out and pulled me into a nightmare that I would never escape from.  
  
See a billowing silk wedding dress swishing down a church aisle and it still brings back that white canopy that dropped me into my Hades. Swings creak beneath a playing child and I feel the pull of the harness beneath my arms as my parachutes is caught by branches. Pass beneath a bower of roses in the Rose Garden and my chest starts to constrict as the jungle closes around me again, enclosing me in my own private hell.  
  
The jackknife was in my hand as soon as my fumbling fingers could manage the buttons on my jumpsuit. Hacking, tearing at the braces that held me suspended beneath my parachute and caught ten feet off the twisted jungle floor, I was trying to escape from one prison into another. Deposited unceremoniously on the hard ground, I was on the run from everything.  
  
I was running from the Viet Cong, from my own fears, from my sudden awareness that I had become the other guy. I was running but I didn't know where I was going. I didn't have anywhere to run because I didn't know where anything was. There was a wall of jungle. And no matter which way I turned, the jungle was always there, pressing in on me, enclosing me, imprisoning me.  
  
I don't remember falling for the first time, but it must have happened. Because you don't just suddenly fall and find yourself too weak to push yourself back up. It doesn't happen that way. You fall and get back up until the one time when you fall and you can't manage to push yourself back up. I don't know how many falls it takes to get to that point. But it's more than one.  
  
The knees of my flight suit were torn and elbows were bruised. I must have fallen hundreds of times before that. But that one time I remember because I couldn't get up. I couldn't reach within myself to tap a reserve of strength because it was gone. Two weeks on three bars of chocolate and rainwater dripping off leaves will bring you to the point where you can't push yourself back up.  
  
So I crawled, pulling myself over the ground, clawing my way forward because I couldn't yet bring myself to give up. I refused to become the other guy. As long as I was running, even this pathetic creep that a child would have been embarrassed of, I wasn't the other guy.  
  
And then, voices intruded through the veil of isolation. I thought at first I was hallucinating. It had happened before. It would happen again. But this time, the time when it counted, the voices weren't mere figures of my imagination. They were living breathing Americans. Americans who hadn't yet become the other guy.  
  
Five feet to either side and I would have been lost forever in the jungle, another casualty in a war that no one wanted. I would have been another number in the statistics for an unjust war fought by the unwilling for the ungrateful. I tried to call out but my tongue had swollen in my mouth. My throat was so dry that I couldn't manage a croak. I didn't have the strength to beat two branches together.  
  
But they were led by some unseen hand within sight. The leader started when he saw the apparition before him. Straight from death, I had to be carried for miles in the jungle that imprisoned us all. Plucked from hell, I was hauled through dangerous territory by strangers. I was saved by the sweat and blood of men I had never seen before and would never see again.  
  
Caged. The jungle caged us. It bound us to our fates. It let no one escape its prison. It twisted its vines into our souls, sprung forth weeds that were impossible to kill. It sent its slow green poison through our minds. There is no escaping the cage of the jungle. 


	2. Jed

Finding Faith  
  
'Congratulations, Mister President.' I don't know quite who said it first. But it took a minute to register who exactly it was that they were talking to. My mind, usually so astute at grasping the minutiae of a situation, had ceased its functions and I could not comprehend that that elusive title was mine.  
  
I was following in a long line of monumental figures. These were men who had carved history with their wills. These were men who had crafted a great nation with the force of their characters. And now I was being called to join that elite.  
  
Never had I considered that irregular office might someday be mine. It was beyond the reach of dreams. I was never supposed to win, at least in my own mind. I was a candidate in a race with nothing to lose. I merely wanted to instigate discussion in the upper circles of great men.  
  
And now I was being called to rise above the circles of great men to become their head. I was being summoned to take the proffered laurels and guide the discussions that I had merely intended to begin, never dreaming that I would have an active role within these circles.  
  
I suppose that I answered them eventually, still astounded that the impossible had become possible in some sudden momentous shift. The world had altered itself beneath me in the instant when my eyes were closed and I was being caught unaware. The world had been as I had always known it. And suddenly, in no more than the blink of an eye, nothing was as it had been.  
  
How long does it take to change the world? How much sweat and toil goes into it? To whom do we owe the debt when our dreams float from the intangible to within our grasp?  
  
I suppose that I looked dazed, stunned even. 'Congratulations, Mister President.' The words echoed around the cavernous void that my mind had vacated, resonating in the hollow space. And yet, they did not fade. They imprinted themselves on my all-too-treacherous memory, saving themselves for a time when I could fully comprehend the immensity of those words.  
  
Good men are all that stand between us and the devil. The speaker slips my mind. It was Kennedy perhaps. Will I be one of those good men? With the weight of the world on my shoulders will I be able to bear the burden and stand between all that is evil?  
  
Who am I to presume to play God? To take that step beyond my own all too fragile mortality and become someone that children generations from now will remember and learn of. Will I be a Polk, all but forgotten but in volumes collecting dust? Will I be a Lincoln, a martyr for a cause? Will I be a Roosevelt, a firm hand guiding the country through its darkest hours?  
  
My hand was shaken firmly. My shoulder was clapped resoundingly. I was pulled into a hesitant embrace. I was kissed on the cheek lightly. And all the while those words were repeated in a thousand different voices, in a million different intonations, all colliding and combining in my mind. 'Congratulations, Mister President.'  
  
Faces swim before me. Some I connect with names, with actions that have brought me here. Some I have never seen. These people with whom I have never spoken have raised me from my position to one of power. These people, whose names I will never know, are brimming over with joy. And for a moment, I am one of those people. I too feel the elation.  
  
And then it passes and I am left astounded that these people, these widely varied and diverse people, have pulled one from their midst to guide them. And I am privileged to be that person. The enormity of it all settles down on me again and I cannot fathom what it is that these people see in a stranger.  
  
That is what I am to this nation. I am a stranger that they have seen fit to place their implicit trust in. I am one man who has been culled from the masses as their highest representative. I have become America and all Americans though I do not know them and cannot understand them.  
  
Past joy, not yet ready for elation, bogged down in the quagmire of happiness, I am humbled by the weight of the decisions that millions of my fellow citizens have made this day. They have chosen between two strangers and have picked who they believe is the lesser of two evils to stand between themselves and the greater evils. They have chosen a mere mortal to guide our nation to the greater good.  
  
I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office that has been entrusted to me. I will, to the best of my ability, preserve the integrity of this nation. I will protect all those in need of protection. I will defend my nation's borders and its citizens. And I will uphold the ideals that have raised me here. I am but a servant of the people. I am a servant of the people that have suddenly become mine to lead.  
  
'Congratulations, Mister President.' I still cannot bring myself to respond to that title. I am afraid that if I do, this night will vanish in a cloud of smoke and I will wake from this magnificent dream that is not a dream. 


	3. Josh

Finding Faith  
  
I don't remember hearing the first shots as they were fired. But I do remember that my body was slammed forcefully down to the rough concrete as pandemonium broke out. At first, I thought it was one of the Secret Service agents taking me down. Then I remembered that I had wandered a little distance away while the President worked the crowd. And I was face up. The Secret Service agents would have come at me from behind.  
  
I must have reacted myself, hurling myself to the ground so hard I was sure I would have bruises to show for it. The shrieks and sirens were some distance away and I hoped that the President or any of the staff hadn't been hit. I hoped that no one in the crowd had been hurt. Hopefully the gunmen didn't know how to aim. Hopefully their sights were broken. I knew that it was unlikely, but there was always hope.  
  
There was something wet beneath me and I hoped it wouldn't ruin my new suit. It was a new suit even though no one had noticed. Not even Donna had noticed because it looks like every other suit I own. But it was a new suit, the first that I had had for a while and I had picked it out myself, without help from anyone. Even if Donna didn't notice, it was still a new suit.  
  
I went to push myself up now that the shooting had stopped, wanting to hurry back to the others to make sure everything was alright. But my body didn't seem to want to respond to the commands my brain was issuing. It took three tries before I got my hands beneath me. But they slipped on the warm sticky liquid that I was lying in. Some kid must have spilt their drink before the area was roped off and secured. So I brought my hands up to wipe them on my shirt; it was an old shirt.  
  
They were red. They were coated in something so red that it reminded me of the candy apples my father used to buy for me at the fair when I was a kid. My hands were covered in blood. It took me another second to realise that it was my blood that they were covered in. A tight feeling had closed around my chest. I thought it was panic and took a deep breath to try and calm myself.  
  
I couldn't. I couldn't take the deep breath that should have calmed me. It was as though a band of white-hot steel had wrapped itself around my lungs. Panic, I reassured myself, only caused more trouble. Yet, unable to take that deep breath to calm myself, I was teetering on the brink of that dangerous panic. But at the same time I was unbelievably calm. It was almost as though I were merely watching it happen to someone else.  
  
But when I tried to wipe my hands, they only found more blood. It was seeping from a hole that my wandering hands managed to find through the ocean of liquid that had formed on my chest. I pressed my hands to it. That was the only thing I could remember from the first aid course I had taken in university; you're supposed to apply pressure to a wound.  
  
It couldn't have been more than a minute later when I heard another scream and saw Toby hurtling toward me, tearing his suit jacket off as he came. He all but threw himself on top of me, crushing his suit jacket against my chest. It felt as though he were lying on top of me and it became even more impossible to breathe, not that it had been easy before.  
  
He was talking to me, telling me to stay calm. But he sounded more panicked that I was. He was running off at the mouth, sounding as incoherent as I had ever heard Toby sound. So I knew Toby was panicked. And Toby is never panicked.  
  
I might have read something into it at the time, but I was too busy passing out. And by the time I woke up, it was too late to consider how easily bullets tear through flesh and panic even Toby. But I had plenty of time to do it later in flashback after flashback.  
  
The first three or four times that it happened, I didn't realise one was coming until it was upon me and I felt the hard concrete impact my body as I was hurled backwards by the bullets. That band of steel would tighten around my chest and it would become impossible to breathe. Sweat would bead on my forehead and would run in rivers down my back, soaking my shirt as surely as if it were the blood that had poured from my body as I lay on the sidewalk.  
  
I thought that it would get better. After the fire, the flashbacks had gone away after a few months. The nightmares had never really gone away, but at least I could deal with the hours that I was awake. And the nightmares had receded in frequency. But this time, the episodes had just kept getting worse. And the nightmares were worse. They would begin with the fire, the same one that I had had since I was a child, and then they would change to Rosslyn. I would be on the ground, trying desperately to crawl toward the burning house as blood poured from my body and people screamed around me. I couldn't save them any more than I could save myself. I couldn't save my family as they were trapped in the burning building. And I couldn't save my friends as they lay beside me, blood seeping from their bodies as bullets tore through their flesh.  
  
In the flashbacks at least I was alone, if that could be counted as a blessing. I was alone and no one could reach me. No one was there and I was alone, bleeding to death. My hands would sometimes rise unconsciously to my chest in an effort to stem the bleeding. And I had more than enough time to ponder how easily bullets could tear through flesh and panic anyone, even Toby. 


	4. Donna

Now I think that I can finally understand some of what Josh went through at Rosslyn.  I wanted to identify with him so badly during his recovery, but I never wanted this.  I never wanted to know firsthand that it is possible to be absolutely alone, even when you're surrounded with people.  I never wanted to feel helpless with so many people around to help.

I never wanted to know that the old wives lie.  My life never flashed before my eyes.  What flashed before my eyes was the scene outside the SUV as we flipped and the sky became the ground.  I didn't see dearly departed relatives urging me to live.  I just saw the terrified faces of my fellow passengers.  I did see a bright light, but that was just before everything went dark and I can only assume that it was an explosion.

For a moment that changed so much, I don't really remember much of it.  One moment everything was fine.  The next something changed.  Then nothing was right.  After that there was only nothing.

I think that I'm grateful for that nothingness.  I think that I'm glad I don't remember the chaos that sure must have reigned after the explosions had finished and people were swarming in to help.  I think that I'm glad I don't remember being trapped in the cage of metal that the SUV formed around me, even if it saved my life.  But I know that I'm glad not to remember the bodies of the dead being removed.

Another thing that I know is that I'm grateful for my every breath.  No matter how much it hurts or how much I want the pain to stop, I almost welcome it.  The pain means that I am still alive.  The pain means that the terrorists haven't won.  I wonder if Josh felt this way after Rosslyn.

Rosslyn and Israel: two places that are separated by half a world.  Israel and Rosslyn: two places that are the same.  They are places where violence has won out over sanity.  They are places where lives have been forever shattered.  They are places that have torn our nation apart.

I never wanted it to be this way.  I wanted to do something that meant something.  I didn't want to be one of the victims that launched a war.  Even as my world is again fading to black, that thought sticks in my mind and helps me cling to consciousness.  I know that the president cannot let this attack go unpunished.  But I fear what that punishment will be.

Monitors and alarms are going off around me.  I wonder if this will be to me what sirens are to Josh.  I don't really remember anything from the explosion.  But I don't want to pretend that I will escape from this unscathed.  I know better than that.  Still, I wonder if this frenetic beeping will make an appearance in my nightmares.

Or is this a nightmare?  Is this all a nightmare?  I wish it were so because then the darkness would be fading instead of creeping up on me.  My breath would come easily and quickly instead of slowly and agonisingly.

My eyes are closed, but still the darkness is coming ever closer.  Perhaps if I just let it take me for a moment, I'll have the strength to resist.

Now I know what Josh must have felt after Rosslyn.  But I wish that I had remained ignorant.


End file.
